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Minister’s Blog

A
fortnight ago, astronomers revealed the first close-up images of a huge black
hole. They offer scientists the opportunity to marry Einstein’s theory of
relativity to the world of quantum mechanics. In a black hole everything is
crushed into an infinitely small space.

This is
the elusive, ‘Theory of Everything’ which Stephen Hawking spent a large part of
his life trying to unravel. The most interesting thing about black holes is
that they were discovered long before they were observed in the universe.

The
discovery was entirely theoretical. The mathematics laid bare their existence
but the scientists had to wait three decades before they found any signs of
them in the universe. Perhaps Plato was right afterall when he said, ‘God is a geometer!’